


you long to say a thousand words but seasons change

by spaceandvinyls



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Phandom Big Bang 2019, i literally don't know how to tag that, where Dan and Phil are seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:03:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceandvinyls/pseuds/spaceandvinyls
Summary: dan wipes away at the layer of snow on the ice and, noticing his reflection, reaches up to touch his face. he doesn’t know what to think about himself. his cheeks are rosy and he can faintly see his breaths crystalizing in the air. he’s wearing a fur cloak with the hood up, but doesn’t know who made it or how he came by it. then again, he doesn’t know anything about this place, just that he’s meant to be here.





	you long to say a thousand words but seasons change

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to snekydingdong and rainbow-phan for being amazing teammates! the art for this fic will be linked on my tumblr (amazingmitchell) so go check it out!!

in the beginning, there was chaos. fires ravaged the face of the earth, and ashes rained from the sky. from the discord, mother nature was created out of necessity. she tamed the wind and gave the world stability, her sweat and blood falling as fresh water, but she could not hold the ground together on her own. and so summer was born. 

the first of mother nature’s children, aine loved the long hours of the day and kept the sun in the palm of her hand. she fostered fire while mother nature turned the earth. they tore away the earth to create the moon, then when they decided the ground was too flat and boring, mountains rose under their command. then one day, aine discovered what would become the first life in a pool of water. when she tried to touch it, she nearly destroyed it. afraid to lose the precious specks of essence, mother nature reached deep inside herself to create spring.

phil was mother nature’s finest creation. she cried tears of joy when she first saw him, and her tears wet the earth and allowed the first trace of life to become something more. phil nurtured it until it became a living organism, and slowly it grew in complexity. but aine was jealous of the attention mother nature was giving phil, and they argued night and day. eventually, mother nature decided her children could not live together. so she took aine with her to the depths of the earth, to one day trade places with phil on the surface. once it was phil’s turn to reunite with mother nature, aine returned to her place in the sun. 

except aine was still frustrated with both phil and mother nature. she made the air so unbearably hot almost all the water in the world evaporated, which killed many of the organisms phil fought so hard to protect. to control the dying, mother nature reached inside herself once more to create autumn. eve began to undo the harshness of summer, making the air cooler and nights longer. she could not save the creatures, though, from the damage aine had caused. so eve taught them to become dormant until phil could tend to them again. 

after years of argument and disarray, there was finally harmony between the children of mother nature. she called them her seasons, and for the rest of time they would watch over the earth as life developed. the water creatures became plants and smaller animals, which turned into trees and large beasts. mother nature helped her children build a cottage by the edge of a lake once the animals phil coaxed into existence were a nuisance, especially the insects.

one year, just as summer was about to give way to autumn and the days lost their warmth, aine created a hearth. when eve returned, the fire was dreadfully warm, so she made the air colder. but the air became too cold too quickly, and the storm clouds that were looming overhead dropped snow instead of rain. not knowing what to do, eve called for mother nature. and with that, winter was born. 

—

when dan opens his eyes, the first thing he notices is the snow-covered branches of the forest. he’s sitting near the roots of a tree, and he runs his gloved hands through the snow. he doesn’t know where he is, or how he got here. come to think of it, he doesn’t know where he was before this, if anywhere. the only clue he has is the two words repeating over and over in his head: a name and a title.  _ dan. winter.  _

slowly, dan stands up, using the tree for support. something inside him pulls him forward, and he’s walking down the hill. birds, or at least that’s what he instinctively calls them, fly overhead in the same direction as him. other than the pair of birds, the forest is lifeless and silent. 

he stumbles into a large clearing, beyond which is a frozen lake and a small cabin. dan’s sure he’s never seen this place before, but it feels so familiar that he might as well have. stepping inside, it’s much drier than outside, and the fireplace in the center of the room warms the air. there’s nothing more than a table, bookshelf, and bed in the cabin. the heat begins to bother dan, so he opens the door again and sets out to explore the forest.

dan begins by circling the lake, though it’s cold and just as silent as the forest. he wonders if there might be life underneath the ice, surfacing when the ice disappears.  _ if _ the ice disappears. dan wipes away at the layer of snow on the ice and, noticing his reflection, reaches up to touch his face. he doesn’t know what to think about himself. his cheeks are rosy and he can faintly see his breaths crystalizing in the air. he’s wearing a fur cloak with the hood up, but doesn’t know who made it or how he came by it. then again, he doesn’t know anything about this place, just that he’s meant to be here.

he pulls away from the hypnotic trance the ice drew him into. finding nothing else of immediate interest, dan wanders back into the trees. it seems repetitive at first, the same tree copied over thousands of times to create the forest. but as dan spends more time tracing the land, he starts to see small differences from one tree to the next. one might have an owl hole or the antler markings of a stag, and another might be otherwise unremarkable. 

soon, the light fades and dan makes his way back to the cabin, where the fire flickers through the windows. the warmth is comforting, he realizes, after being outside for so long. dan finds himself drawn to the bed, and while he recognizes it’s for sleeping, he doesn’t feel tired. he slips his cloak and boots off and lays in the bed, closing his eyes and entering a dreamless sleep.

—

as the days pass, dan develops somewhat of a routine: wake up, start the fire, then spend the rest of the day in the mountains and valleys, visiting the same places each time. even though dan never seems to catch it in action, the trees and rocks and snow change. not all of them, but it’s enough for dan to notice. 

one such day, long after dan has lost count of how long he’s been here, he finds new growth, new needles on many of the trees. the next day, a bear and her cubs emerge from somewhere deep in the mountains and sniff around the cabin, drawn to its warmth. it gives dan something new to check up on every day and he’s glad for it.

that is, until the ice on the lake begins to crack. it first happens in the middle of the night, like a clap of thunder, and dan jolts awake. over the course of the next few days, the crack becomes part of a vein, the trunk of a tree with smaller cracks branching out across the ice. dan can hear the splitting throughout the valley, and he wishes he knew what was causing the sudden change, because something inside fills him with unease.

dan wakes up one morning to the sound of sparrows chirping outside, the first birds other than ravens. he sits up, rubbing his eyes and yawning when the door opens, letting cold air inside. at first, he expects it to be the mother bear and her cubs, looking for food. but the hooded, sable-haired person who walks in is no bear.

dan scrambles out from under the covers and backs into the corner of the room. the person clearly senses his fear and confusion, and they lower their hood. 

“you must be winter,” they say, stepping forward with an outstretched hand. “i’m spring, but you can call me phil.”

dan doesn’t take their,  _ his _ , now that he can see their face, hand, instead focusing on the other’s appearance. his cloak is much like dan’s except a lighter material and darker in color. more importantly, his expression is soft, and dan can’t find anything that says phil’s here to hurt him.

“why are you here?” dan asks bluntly, though it comes out harsher than he intends.

“why am i-?” phil blinks, as if dan just asked an obvious question. “what’s your name?”

dan shakes his head, “tell me what’s going on first.”

“well,” phil starts. “you may want to sit down for this.”

and so phil explains their origin story. he has to retell it for everything to make sense to dan, and even then, he still doesn’t grasp the concept of evolution. but dan doesn’t really care about why birds are the way they are; he wants to know how he got here, and it’s the one thing phil can’t explain.

“i remember when i first met eve,” phil says. “fall, autumn, whatever you want to call her. aine had set fire to literally everything, and eve suddenly appeared to help the land heal. she just...started to exist.”

“it felt like i’d woken up from a long dream,” dan says softly, staring out the window and into the forest where he’d first found himself all those months ago. “i don’t remember ever having fallen asleep.”

“it felt that way for me, too. but that was before mother nature separated us, so when i… ‘woke up,’ as you put it, i had aine to talk to. i can’t imagine how lonely you’ve been.”

dan shrugs, “i didn’t know any different, until you showed up.”

“are there even any animals out when it’s cold like this?” phil asks. “the deer visit me when it starts getting warmer.”

“only recently.”

phil smiles warmly. “want to show me? i can’t wait to see how the forest dealt with all this snow for so long.”

dan agrees, though somewhat hesitantly, but forces a smile as they stand up from the table. there’s still so much about phil he doesn’t know, and dan isn’t close to understanding who he is or what his purpose is. for now, he leads phil into the forest, pointing out evidence of stags and which trees have since fallen over. it’s clear phil’s walked this earth hundreds of times over, and dan feels he’s making a fool of himself for pretending to know the forest like phil does. 

until they reach the top of a hill and stop to look out across the valley. “it’s beautiful,” phil remarks, his breath clouding in front of him. “it’s so quiet.” he lets silence fill the air between them. “you know, you never did tell me your name,” phil says after a while.

dan lets the silence linger on before answering. “dan.”

“and mother nature decided to call you winter. i think both of those names suit you.”

“well, that’s a relief,” dan says, again, more rudely than he’d intended, but phil seems to take it as a joke and laughs. 

“you did well, dan,” phil says, looking back to the valley. “the forest is more beautiful than i left it.”

“i’m not sure what i did,” dan mutters. 

“i’m not sure either, but at least you didn’t burn it all down like aine.”

—

dan doesn’t know what he expects phil to do, but after the day passes and another starts, dan finds himself wondering why phil’s still here, since seasons aren’t allowed to roam the earth together. phil explains it later as seasonal changing, where winter slowly turns into spring, until there isn’t any trace of winter left, and then spring seeps into summer, and so on. they disappear and reappear when the time comes, and that explanation is enough for dan.

except dan’s heart can’t help but hurt as the snow melts more each day; as the ice cracks further and animals he’s never seen before drink at the lake’s edge. phil’s eyes only grow with wonder as he shows dan secret fox dens and birds’ nests. each day, they walk through the forest as dan usually does, then they do it all over again with phil’s path. it’s exhausting, to say the least. but dan learns so much about phil and the forest that it’s worth it. any doubts he had about phil have been long forgotten.

eventually, the lake stops freezing over at night and the remaining ice melts away. the trees are almost completely green now, and storms drop sleet instead of snow. one day, as dan puts out the fire, he feels extremely tired all of a sudden. he hasn’t done anything yet today, and once phil comes back from checking on something outside, they’re supposed to go on their daily walk. dan tries blinking it away, but when he tries to stand up, he doesn’t have the energy. within seconds, everything cascades into darkness.

—

the next thing dan knows is that he’s waking up from what feels like a deep sleep. he’s sitting exactly where he last was, or at least where he remembers he was. the hearth is burning again, and when dan looks out the window, it’s snowing. even with the fire going, it’s much colder in the cabin than he left it.  _ how long was he asleep? _

he stands up, steadying himself on the mantle. the room looks exactly the same as before, except now there’s a notebook on the bedside table. dan walks over and picks it up, turning to the most recent page. “dan,” it reads.

“i went out for a while and when i came back, i couldn’t find you. you probably have a lot of questions, and i would have answered them while you were still here. you sorta caught me off guard by leaving so soon. you know seasons change here on earth, and when our season’s up, we disappear so the next can come. we usually don’t know when it’s our turn to leave until we’re gone. 

“it feels like falling asleep, doesn’t it? then suddenly you’re back, doing exactly what you were before you left. i feel guilty for not being by your side when it happened to help you through it. i can only imagine how confused and worried you must have been. there’s a lot more to talk about, but i don’t want to overwhelm you after your first seasonal change. hopefully i’ll be back in a few months so we can see each other again. p.s. the baby bears are getting bigger and cuter! ♡ phil”

dan finds himself smiling as he reads phil’s note. it does answer some of his questions, but he feels left with a perpetual feeling of loneliness, of starting over again. 

he waits until the storm passes to go outside. the lake is completely frozen over, and the air is silent as ever. at first, he tries to find the den where he first saw the bear family. then he realizes it’s been two full seasons since he last saw phil, so the bears are probably all grown up and have moved on already.

and so dan finds himself falling into his old routine. he walks around the forest, somewhat bored with the grayness of the trees. the realization that he misses spring occurs to him as he sees empty birds’ nests and rocks covered with dead lichen. more importantly, dan realizes he misses phil, especially when he turns to tell phil something but is greeted with empty space. 

it only takes dan a few hours to decide he hates winter.

—

the days pass slower than dan can possibly imagine, and eventually he reaches the day when the ice on the lake starts to crack again. it takes a few more days for the trees to start showing their color again, but dan is sure it’s a sign phil will return.

when he does, dan comes back into the cabin after checking the ice again to see phil laying in bed, and he nearly screams. “you came back,” dan says breathlessly.

“did i?” phil smiles. “that’s a surprise.”

“you didn’t think you’d come back?” dan asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“just joking with you.”

—

“why didn’t i see eve?” dan asks some days later. they’re both sitting at the edge of a waterfall, one that pours into the lake some miles ahead. “if i get to see you at the start of spring, why doesn’t eve see me at the start of winter?” 

“she’s decided she hates winter,” phil says back. “after she first made the earth too cold, she’s sworn off snow for eternity. mother nature agreed to let her disappear right before the first snow of the season.”

“how do you know that if there’s all of summer between you?”

“we talk to each other through the notebook. well, i guess it’s not really talking.” phil shrugs. “we leave notes when we’re alone and do as much talking as we can when there’s two of us.”

dan pauses for a moment before asking another question. “what’s aine like, then?”

“aine was the first of us, i suppose. she knows a lot more about things than i do. she’s hard to become close to, though, since she’s so warm all the time. i’m kind of glad i follow winter. i much prefer the cold.”

“but you get to watch the animals and feel the grass,” dan frowns. spring is everything winter isn’t. dan feels like their seasons are reflected in themselves; phil is bright and always cheerful, whereas dan is cold and has nothing to smile about when his season is silent and empty.

“there’s something special in every season, dan. it took me a while to appreciate myself.” the silence of winter fills the space between them, until suddenly, the ice below the waterfall cracks and sends water spraying everywhere. dan shrieks and backs away from the edge of the waterfall as phil laughs. “that never happens in spring.”

“lucky you,” dan grumbles.

—

as the weeks go by, dan spends every minute with phil because he knows soon enough, he’ll have to leave and when he comes back, phil won’t be here. so when dan feels tiredness creeping up on him one morning, he immediately reaches out for phil’s arm and whispers his name, “i think it’s happening.”

“it’s fine, dan, everything’s going to be fine,” phil says as dan falls into his arms and struggles to stand. “it’s normal, right? you’ll be back before you know it.”

even being so close to phil, literally in his arms, dan’s heart nearly races out of his chest until his vision fades and he disappears from the earth.

—

but sure enough, dan returns for another winter, waking at the edge of the lake where phil left him. the first thing he does is check the notebook on the nightstand, sighing with relief once he sees phil’s handwriting. “hi dan,” the note says. 

“you looked really scared before you left. the first few times it happened to me, i was scared, too. it was sad to see you like that, since i couldn’t do anything to stop it. it’s not always easy to leave. but you’ll get used to it soon enough. 

“today i had to bury a baby bird that fell out of its nest before it could fly. i tried to convince its mother that everything would be alright, but in hindsight i’m not very good at communicating with birds. i left it some berries in its nest, though. i had a few myself and they’re really good! they just became ripe enough a few days ago, and unfortunately i don’t think they’ll keep for a year so that you can try them. you’ll just have to take my word for it :P ♡ phil”

the note leaves dan feeling warm inside, though it also makes him miss phil more. for the rest of that winter, dan doesn’t stop thinking about spring. 

—

when phil comes back, dan runs to him and hugs him tightly. the clouds are dark and it’s bound to start sleeting any moment, but dan doesn’t care. “you’re back,” he smiles.

“did you miss me that much?” phil grins back.

“i’m sorry,” dan says, almost sheepishly. he pulls away from phil, letting his beaming friend catch his breath. “i’ve just been so lonely without you. i’m sorry about that baby bird, by the way.”

“what?” phil asks. “oh, that’s right. it feels like ages ago when that happened. don’t you get any animals dying from the frost?”

dan shakes his head, “if i do, they’re buried in the snow.”

“speaking of the snow, let’s go inside, yeah? it’s freezing.”

“i thought you said you liked the cold,” dan teases, starting to walk back toward the cabin. phil just rolls his eyes, and dan laughs.

—

that night, dan and phil sit by the fire, the storm raging outside the cabin. the wind is so strong it threatens to blow the door in, but dan moves closer to phil and breathes in deeply, calming himself down.

“quite the storm you’ve got,” phil says softly.

“it’s nearly spring,” dan counters. “it’s your storm, too.”

“well, we should think about going to sleep,” phil yawns after a few minutes of watching the fire crackle and pop. “we’ll have to get up early tomorrow to see how much damage the storm did.” but dan’s already asleep, his head rested on phil’s shoulder, so phil carefully lifts him off the floor and tucks him under the covers of the bed. 

when dan wakes up, he finds his legs tangled with phil’s. it’s the first night they properly sleep together, and they find themselves in the same situation every night afterward. after the first night, dan’s nervous; are they breaking some sort of unspoken rule? but phil never mentions it, and so they go to bed together each night, as well as spend every waking minute with each other. at first, dan thinks it’s because phil wants to be by his side when it’s time to go, but as time passes, he isn’t so sure anymore. 

—

“i’m starting to understand what you mean when you say the seasons are lonely,” phil writes. “i always used to find comfort in watching the animals or walking around the woods, but now all i can think about is you. the animals are still adorable, of course, and the woods are still breathtaking. i saw a baby deer drinking from the lake today. imagine if that deer had been born a bit earlier, maybe we could have seen that together.” 

there’s a space after the note, followed by another entry. 

“it’s been raining nonstop for the last few days. that’s nice for the plants, i suppose, but i haven’t seen any animals since the rain started. it’s a cold rain, too. sometimes it turns into sleet or hail at night. it’s probably cold enough to bring you back, but i don’t think it works like that. i wish you were here to warm me and the animals up. ♡ phil”

every note of phil’s puts a smile on dan’s face. he reads them like they’re in the forest together and phil’s by his side, telling him about all the things he’s seen. 

over time, dan’s winters change. some seem to get shorter and shorter, which dan isn’t upset about because it means he gets to see phil. some years, winter lasts a few weeks before phil shows up again. and some years they’re longer, other years the winters never pass, but dan patiently waits to see phil again. 

he writes in the notebook, they both do. most of the time, there’s nothing interesting enough about winter for dan to write about, so he’ll draw the view from the window, or he’ll draw the same scene but how he imagines it to be in the spring. he reads an entry from phil each day, learning about what happened on that particular day of spring, but sometimes phil’s days are boring and he’ll end up drawing, too. and, of course, they’re inseparable when winter melds into spring and they’re together again. as much as dan hates winter, phil makes the time he has to spend alone worth it.

—

as the winters get even shorter, dan finds himself seeing phil more and more often, which seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. until one year, when dan sets foot on the earth again, phil is already there. 

“it’s too short,” dan says, looking over at the lake, which didn’t freeze over at all this year. “something’s not right. what happens if winter doesn’t come at all next year?”

“aine’s been coming earlier and earlier, too,” phil admits. “she tells me she doesn’t have as much control as she used to. she thinks it’s humans.”

“the ones that pray for good harvests and build those funny houses?”

phil shakes his head, “ they’re getting rid of winter, dan. they’re getting rid of you. and soon there won’t be anything left but the dry heat of summer. and i’m nervous, because all the life will die and we will, too.” 

“i don’t want to think about leaving you,” dan says, taking phil’s hands in his and resting their foreheads together.

“then don’t,” phil says, and he kisses dan. it’s soft and slow, and it surprises dan at first, but his heart hurts so much at the idea of never seeing phil again that he can’t pull away.

that was dan’s last winter.

—

_ “where do we go when we’re not here?” dan asked, picking up a river rock and skipping it across the lake. _

_ “what do you mean?” _

_ “when we come back, it feels like waking up from a dream.” another rock splashed into the water. “when we all fall asleep, where do we go?” _

_ phil took a rock of his own and threw it into the distance. “i don’t know. even summer doesn’t know, and she was the first.” _

_ “tell me about summer again.” _

_ “again?” phil laughed. “she’s radiant. she makes the water warm but can evaporate it all in an instant. she’s constantly changing, and that’s what i love about you. you seem cold, but you’re kind to the earth. you’re a reminder of the life that remains and the life to come.” _

_ “but you’re the one who brings life with you,” dan said back. _

_ “i suppose i do. but you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone.” _


End file.
